Belief
by Audra Rose
Summary: Charlie. Don. Basketball. Faith. This story was published on live journal last year, so I apologize if you've seen it before.


Belief

by Audra Rose

_C: I wish we could make Dad just stay in the house for a couple of weeks._

_D: Yeah, well, good luck with that._

_C: What? I've gone months without leaving the house._

_-- Vector_

_The motion of the basketball in the x direction equals velocity in the x direction times time. The motion in the y direction equals velocity in the y direction times time minus gravity divided by two times time squared_.

_-- part of the equation describing a free-throw_

_C: This is truth; the math proves it._

_-- Dirty Bomb_

Charlie first figured out the equation out when he was nine. Mom had said that every kid needed fresh air and exercise, and that if he sat hunched over his calculus text book any longer he'd grow up with his shoulders in a permanent slump. Argument had been pointless. The next thing he'd known he'd found himself alone on the driveway with a basketball in his hands, listening to the cicadas buzzing fretfully in the late afternoon haze.

Figuring out the equations for the velocity vectors by himself had been the hard part, since he knew his mom would get mad if he went inside to look them up, but after accounting for time and gravity, it was simple algebra.

7.6 meters per second. An angle of 60 degrees. Nothing but net.

It didn't work, of course. It turned out that the equation was correct but the application presented difficulties. Between nine and twenty-nine he'd realized that there were real-world variables that marred the simple elegance of mathematics on paper; things like wind, which could be measured, and the human element, which was far more difficult to describe. The exact angle couldn't be measured by eye, and the application of force came through muscles that couldn't be controlled perfectly every time. Even so, over the years he tried to account for the changing length of arm, the increased density of muscle. Fatigue. Backspin.

"It shouldn't take this long to set up a free throw, Charlie."

Distraction.

Charlie ignored Don and watched the basketball leave his hands, arcing toward the backboard in a perfect parabola.

The arc broke when Don slapped the ball out of the air, dribbled it twice and took a shot. The harsh reverberation of the back board as the ball careened off into the bushes went through Charlie like an electric shock.

"The shot clock ran out about five minutes ago."

Charlie looked at Don in irritation and then retrieved the basketball from the begonias without a word.

"What have you done all day, Charlie?" Don's voice had taken on that tone; the one that was tolerant but strung with tension and meant the question he was asking had nothing to do with the answer he was looking for.

Charlie shrugged, bounced the ball once. "This."

"Uh-huh. And yesterday?"

Charlie stood and held the ball at his waist. He had to think.

"Laundry."

"Okay." Don took the ball again and held it between his forearm and his hip. There was a crease between Don's brows, and if Charlie added that to Don's tone of voice that always meant Charlie had _done_ something. "When was the last time you left the house? Or the yard?" Don added, forestalling Charlie's objection.

Charlie couldn't answer that because he honestly couldn't remember. He'd taught his last class in May, given finals, turned in his grades…

"What's the date?"

Don's sigh was particularly long-suffering. "You know, it might be time to get out some. There's a whole world out there – actual people you could talk to."

Charlie shrugged and took the basketball back. "I guess."

"Aren't you bored?" Don sounded really irritated now, and Charlie realized that he was probably going to have to spend some time working on this problem.

"Not really. What does it matter anyway?" he asked, dribbling the ball around the place where the concrete had started to crumble. "Classes don't start again until August."

"It matters, Charlie. Every time you do this you make Dad worry and then he makes me crazy. You have to look outside your little world sometimes, you know?"

"My little world?" Charlie smirked, found the line and shot the basket ball again. Off the rim, this time. Distraction increased the margin of error , obviously. "You make it sound like I've got imaginary friends or something."

"You've never had imaginary friends." Don made it sound like that was a bad thing. He'd taken the rebound and started to dribble again, like maybe they could get on with the game. Charlie moved around him, trying to block Don's shot.

"I bet you never believed that there were elves that turned the milk blue, either," Don said with his back to Charlie, moving toward the basket.

"That was Dad with food coloring," Charlie said, laughing, reaching around Don's waist.

"Yeah, but I didn't know that until I was eight. What about the rest of it?"

"The rest of what?" Charlie was beginning to wonder at Don's vehemence. Don feinted left and pivoted around Charlie, sinking the basket without consulting physics. He turned to Charlie, and Charlie realized that the game was on hold again.

"You never took anything on faith; you just looked for the flaws in the logic. Like when I told you the dinosaurs at La Brea came out of the tar pits at night. You showed me the viscosity equation for tar and said that it was impossible."

"It is impossible, even if they weren't dead. And hey, you were trying to _scare_ me."

"That's just an example, Charlie. Kids are _supposed_ to believe in stuff like Kermit the Frog and Santa Claus, whether it's true or not."

"Well, you didn't believe in Santa Claus, either." Charlie pointed out. "For obvious reasons."

Don ignored him.

"That story mom told us about Elijah's violin, _The Wizard of Oz_ – you never believed in any of it, did you?" Don demanded.

Charlie reflected. It seemed as though he'd always known that a soap bubble didn't have enough mass to support a person's weight. That Kermit was made of inanimate felt, that giant reptiles were ages gone. And that sound waves couldn't be trapped by wood.

He imagined what it would have been like to believe in beautiful impossibilities.

"I think… I think I would have liked to," Charlie said softly.

That took something out of Don, deflated his anger somehow. He sat on the wall, and after a minute Charlie joined him, resting the basket ball on his knees.

Don looked toward the koi pond and Charlie absently bounced the ball between his sneakers.

"So you believed in all that stuff?" Charlie asked after a minute.

"For awhile, yeah." Don said, still sounding a little tired.

Not for the first time Charlie wondered why Don made the choice he did; how he went from a kid who could believe in fairy tales to a profession so firmly rooted in reality.

"Do you remember that time I told you that tree-gnomes lived inside acorns?" Don asked after a minute. "You must have been five, maybe six?"

"I believed you that time," Charlie said, brightening. "I really did."

"For about five minutes, you believed me. Then you ran to mom and made her pry one open for you." Charlie remembered holding his breath, watching her hands.

"You know," Don said, his expression distant, "I think at that minute, she would have given just about anything in the world to open that acorn and find a gnome inside for you."

Judging by the look on his face, maybe Don would have, too.

Charlie looked away, down at the ground. It seemed like he was always finding out the price everyone paid for the gift he'd been given was higher than he knew. He wished that at the time he'd known enough to pretend.

"Forget it, Charlie," Don said, laying his hand on Charlie's shoulder. "You're right; it doesn't matter. It's just – the world I grew up in had a lot more magic in it. I wish you could have believed it for awhile."

The perfect free throw could be exactly described by physics but only human muscle memory could make it work. Don had wanted him to believe in gnomes in the back yard but never let him forget that there was a whole world past the fence. Some things were easy to believe in.

He shoved his shoulder against Don's.

"Let's get out of here. I'll buy you lunch."

He saw the beginnings of Don's slow smile. "Okay. But somewhere good this time. Not that crappy taco stand."

"I'll let you pick."

Charlie stood and threw the ball. 7.6 meters per second. An angle of 60 degrees. Nothing but net.

End


End file.
